I'm a wife, a mommy of three little girls AND a baby boy... I'm a daughter, a granddaughter, a cousin, an aunt, a sister-in-law, a daughter-in-law, a stepdaughter, a friend, a Christian, a klutz, and a mad scrapbooker! I'm a Southern girl who has been transplanted into the freezing snowy North. But I'll live.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Sadie has made a breakthrough in her letter-learning. Over the past week, she has put sounds and letters together... now she can figure out what letter a word begins with just by making the sound! I'm so excited about it... it's so cool to see the little wheels turning in her head when she says, "Dog... d-d-d- D!" "Zoo... z-z-z- Z!" I've been told by several people that she's probably "gifted," which may put a kink in my homeschooling aspirations. ME? Homeschool a gifted child? Honestly, I don't know that I have those kinds of qualifications.

Josie is now thoroughly entranced with her baby dolls. She rocks them, reads to them, puts them to bed, dresses them (mainly in hats) and snuggles them in next to her teddy bear. Oh, and she sings the "Shaky Egg" song to them: "I know a chicken... she laid an egg. I know a chicken... she laid an egg. Oh my goodness! It's a shaky egg!" I know, I know. Not the greatest educational or spiritual song ever, but hey - you should see her shaking her egg!

We put up the "Alligator Pool" outside this week. Lydia and Darryl got it for the kids for Christmas, and it's this big wading pool that has two slides on it - one on each side - that look like an alligator... the head is one slide and the tail is another. They had a blast in that thing, and they look so stinking cute in their little bathing suits! Oh, and Sadie, who is prety much completely potty-trained now (Yahoo!!!) has learned to, ahem... potty outside. That is, on the edge of our woods so we wouldn't have to run in the house dripping wet. She thought it was the neatest thing ever: "Hey! Just like a puppy!"

Monday, May 21, 2007

The gardening is frustrating, already. It hasn't been in a week yet, and already the little pests are eating everything! I should've known, since we live in a suburban wildlife refuge - raccoons, deer, rabbits, squirrels, ducks, every kind of vermin there is seems to thrive in our backyard. I never thought they would eat pepper plants! They're all gnawed down to a "nub!" We put up a fence today... I'm hoping that it will at least deter SOME of the varmints. Dang it.

The kids, who could care less about our critter issues, had fun helping me water (and soaking themselves with their own watering cans), finding imaginary worms, and throwing dirt at each other. Maybe I should say DUMPING dirt on each other... I think that would be more appropriate. So, after we emptied out our shoes and their pants and shirts and whacked each other on the head to get all the dirt out, the kids ended up eating a semi-nudie-butt supper because they had to go straight to the tub. There is something about eating while naked (neck-ed, as we say in the South) that they just love. I personally haven't tried it in over two decades. :)

So I do this thing with the kids, just about every night but at least 3 times a week, where I "tell them a secret." I lean over and whisper, "You are the very best Sadie in the world!" or "You are the best Josie in the whole wide world!" The other night, after having a particularly frustrating time consisting of multiple messes, poop explosions (them, not me:) and disobedience, I was rocking Josie for a couple of minutes before I put her in bed. I had not done the whisper thing and I was getting ready to plop her in the crib when she sat up, put her hands on my cheeks, then leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Psssst...pssst...psst... se-tret. Mommy... whole wide world!"

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Tonight, Sadie yanked my sunglasses off the top of my head (I'm forever putting them there and forgetting them... they're like a permanent hair accessory) and said, "Ha ha! I'm a glasses thief! I steal your glasses!" I asked her, "Well, Glasses Thief, what do you do with them when you steal them?" She thought for a second, then said, "Um... I give them back."

The other day during lunch, Jesse & Sadie got a huge kick out of Josie when she kept coming over to me and saying, "Chicken, pease!!! Pease, Mommy? Pease?" Then, when I handed her a piece, she'd shake her head (with the crazy hair) vehemently, run the other way, and yell "Don't want it! Don't LIKE it!" She did this over and over and over again, and Jesse and Sadie were on the other side of the kitchen, cracking up. Josie is a born comedian, I think.

This afternoon, Grandma Beth came over and we all planted our vegetable garden. We are so excited!!! The girls planted almost all the corn single-handedly, and then had a good old time throwing dirt - the dirt here is this gorgeous thick black rich stuff, not like our hard red clay in NC... a plus to Ohio! :) Sadie thought up a new game called "Yank Josie Backwards by her Jacket Hood and Throw Her to the Ground." This bothered me at first, until I realized that Josie was laughing her head off everytime Sadie did it. You just never know what's going to amuse your children, do you?

Physical therapy is going well, although they are kicking my butt... my arms are SO SORE! But I think it's helping (minutely). Home is good, work is good, kids are good... life is good. Busy, but good.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

On Mother's Day, the girls both sang, "Happy Birt-day to you! Happy Birt-day dear, MOMMY!!! Hap Birt-day to YeWWWW!" Jesse (and his mom, who picked it out for me) got me this fabulous scrapbooking caddy thing where I can keep ALL my scrapbook supplies. I love it! AND he paid for me to get my nails done AND let me sleep in! It was a nice day. Mama cleaned my house for me (yay!) and Sadie and Josie picked flowers for me and put them on my nightstand in the morning. :)

Today, Sadie said that she wanted to go to church because (and I quote), "Church is so wonderful. It is YUMMY to be at church!" Josie chimed in, "Lub church! Lub it, Mommy!" So apparently, my kids love church. That makes me happy.

Friday, May 11, 2007

I'm afraid that Josie is going to be one of "those kids." You know, the ones that always need stitches and bleed everywhere? Today, I was in the kitchen and she screamed and came running down the hall toward me. I picked her up and she kept saying, "boo boo! boo boo!" I asked her where, but she wouldn't say. All the while, I felt her tears (or what I THOUGHT were tears) dripping onto my shirt, my leg, my foot... hey, wait a minute... since when do tears make it all the way down to my feet? I look down. A gush of blood ALL down my shirt, my shorts, my thigh, my knee, my calf, my foot, my toes, the floor... HOLY CRAP! I yell (which is not the best thing to say in front of your children, but not the worst thing you could say, either, I suppose). I grabbed a towel and held it to the bottom of her foot, which had a nice little cut about 1/2" long on it, right in the tender part in the middle between the ball of her foot and her heel. The last "incident" that Aunt Cindy had to come and save us from was a good learning experience though, since I didn't panic this time, and Sadie brought me the medical supplies and we got Josie all fixed up. The culprit? Sadie stuck 2 quarters down in her piggy bank at the same time... they got stuck, she tried to pry them loose, and whammo. Glass in the floor. This was funny in a way, because when I was little I broke my piggy bank too... but it was to try and get money OUT of it, not squeeze more IN.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Today, Jesse and I were talking to the girls while they ate their lunch. Sadie has this habit of saying things like, "When YOU were a little baby and I was YOUR mommy..." and "When I used to be big and YOU were little..." and things like that. Today, she said to Jesse, "Daddy, when you were little... well, you were sort of a funny looking baby." I. Cracked. Up.

After this, we had lots of fun playing outside since it was so nice today. They took turns squirting each other with a spray bottle. Josie kept chasing me around and saying, "I squirt! I squirt!"

There is this commercial for JCPenney that's running for Mother's Day (and it keeps running over and over and over) and it makes me cry every time! It's only about 30 seconds long, but it shows this little girl holding her mom's hand and then suddenly she's school age, then suddenly she's a teenager, then suddenly she's married, then suddenly she has her own little girl, and it ends with the mom (now the grandma) holding her daughter's hand and her granddaughter's hand. Sheesh. I'm such an emotional dingbat.

And last but not least, I had to post these silly pictures...One of my favorite things that that my Grandpa Ralph ever did was "corn teeth." Whether it was candy corn or real corn, I didn't care... it always cracked me up. He was so funny, and used to do silly little things all the time just to get people to smile. Thought you would like to see these, because sometimes my kids are just like him!

Monday, May 07, 2007

Today when I got home from work, the kids and I went outside to have lunch and play. This lasted for approximately 20 minutes, mainly because Josie is JUST LIKE ME. In the stubborn department, that is. It was very warm and sunny out, and if you've ever seen her, you know that her cheeks are already like two glowing balls of squishy fire. So, I put a sunhat on her. This seems like a perfectly logical direction to go in, but apparently Josie does not know that word yet. The hat-putting-on did not go well. She took it off, I put it on. She took it off, I put it back on. She yanked it off and yelled, "Don't LIKE it!" I put it on and said, "Wear it!" She threw a tantrum, yanked it off, threw it down, screamed, and jumped up and down (as well as a 21 month old can). I took her inside and put her down for a nap. When you try to reason with her, you realize the true meaning of the word "futile."

However, today really was a good day (barring the hat scene). When they got up from their naps, we went to the park and saw lots of little baby ducks and goslings, and we followed them around and fed crumbs to the mommies. We played on the slides and swings and ran back and forth over the "clippety clop" bridge, looking for mean old trolls. Then we grabbed supper at Boston Market and had a "car picnic" because unfortunately, Sadie was robbed of her pants. By me, because they were soaked. Yes, we are having some potty-training issues, but we're still trying. I keep telling myself, "She won't be in diapers when she's 12 years old!" But sometimes it feels like it. Anyway, after the pant-less (she is a pant-less wonder, after all :) car picnic, we went for a wagon ride (Josie graciously allowed Sadie to cover herself up with Josie's blankie) around the park and had a nice stroll.

They went to bed without much of a fuss, especially Josie...she was pooped from chasing ducks and saying, "Hey! What's that!?" and "Hey! Lookit this!" (pronounced ha-ay... look-eat dis). Sadie held out a little longer and surprised me with this addition to her Psalm repertoire:

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want to go to bed.He does NOT make me lie down in my bed.He does NOT lead me to bed."